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I’ mad So mad, I shouldn’t open s "I obviously can take care of myself"

"How the fk was I to know that?"

The car behind us blares his horn when West cuts hiht back at you"

He pulls into the neighborhood and before me is the spot where our worlds collided One second earlier or later and maybe I could have avoided Conner and his friend One step in the other direction and West would have never almost plowed me over

Nausea disorients me and I lay a hand over my stomach Is this all we are? Continual actions and reactions? No control over our futures? One pink slip and we lose our house and I lose uy and I lose Jax and Kaden? One step off the wrong curb and er’s?

If that’s true, then life is one pathetic and sick game

West eases into the lot and shifts the SUV in Park "We can’t leave it like this"

"I know" A pause on ernail I’ve never been able to grow theured out how to paint theirl "That was mean to say"

"I don’t hate you, either, and, trust me, I’ve been told worse" He releases a breath "I’ray dayA wo toddler by her ar it The child trips over a curb and the woainst the blacktop I hate this place Not West Justfor a way to fix this so you can be free and I can’t think of one" Not when he insists on continually butting in "I’ain, but can you please tell er I could be a serial killer or I could collect road kill and turn it into stuffed ani their decapitated heads fro--"

"The dolls would creep me out"

I raise an eyebrow "Just the dolls?"

West sain, like he did outside school, and that sweet, sweet sight causes h threshold for creepy"

I laugh and the high feeling pluhed before today Last o? Years? "My point is, you don’t know ladiator without an ounce of training"

"Cool Does thatserious! This whole situation is utterly and completely serious!"

"You need to learn how to chill" West exhales, then slides his hand over the steering wheel "I don’t knohy I’ this"

"Please?"

He’s silent, but it’s the type of silence that tells hts My dad, before he was laid off, had that same expression whenever we had a discussion Dad always answered rant him time